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Topic: Build the Arcology City: the Sim City 2000 With the Highest Population Challenge

This article will discuss how to build the ultimate Sim City 2000 City with the highest population possible. The most useful and versatile buildings used in the Sim City 2000 game are the Arcologies. At a population of 120,000, the player will be granted permission by the game to build an Arcology. The Arcologies are not only capable of providing almost all the infrastructure needed by a city; they are also capable of housing large amounts of people in small spaces due to their tremendous heights. All four types of Arcology available in the game will be used because each type of Arcology has a unique set of features it incorporates to eliminate the need for additional infrastructure. The only other buildings needed by the city are the power plants because they are needed for the Arcologies to operate. The most efficient type of power plant to be used in the game is the fusion power plant because it has the best cost efficacy and the highest power density among all the power plants in the game. The features of the Arcologies and the fusion power plants will be discussed below.

7.) Average Power Density of the Other Power Plants: 38.22MW/tileAverage Cost Efficacy of the Other Power Plants: $25/MW

Calculating the maximum population achievable based on the optimum configuration for the infrastructure:

The Arcologies of the city have all been clustered into groups of four in an 8x8 grid with each type of Arcology being within that grid. Since there are 40,000 tiles in the game, the maximum number of grids that can be constructed is 625, but because the Arcologies require electricity from an external source, space must be made to accommodate the best type of power plant available, the fusion power plant.

Since there are a total of 2,500 Arcologies that can be built in the space provided by the game, and they each use 5MW of power, they will consume an estimated,

2,500 Arcologies x 5MW = 12,500MW

With 2,500 MW of power per fusion plant, the total number of fusion plants needed to sustain such a city is,

12,500MW/2,500MW = 5 Power Plants

Because the power plants will occupy space, it will be deducted from the space that can occupied by the Arcology grids, with an area of 16 tiles per fusion plant and 5 fusion plants needed, the total area they will occupy is,

With 64 tiles occupied by each Arcology grid and 39,920 spare tiles, the total number of grids that can be built is,

39,920 tiles/64 tiles = 623.75 tiles

Because there are five fusion plants that will be used, the fifth fusion plant will infringe on the space occupied by one of the Arcology grids, therefore, the space of the Arcology with the lowest population capacity, the forest Arcology will be used up by the fifth fusion plant instead for that one grid.

With a total of 39,920 available tiles and 16 tiles used by each Arcology, the total number of Arcologies that can be built is,

39,920/16 tiles per Arcology = 2,495 Arcologies

Because one grid will have a fusion plant in its place of the forest Arcology to be built there, the total population in that grid will amount to,

55,000 People in the Plymouth Arcology + 45,000 People in the Darco Arcology + 65,000 People in the Launch Arcology = 165,000 People

For the remaining 623 grids with 2,492 Arcologies, and 623 of each type of Arcology, the total population of all the Arcologies is,

Plymouth Arcology: 623 Arcologies x 55,000 People = 34,265,000 People

Forest Arcology: 623 Arcologies x 30,000 People = 18,690,000 People

Darco Arcology: 623 Arcologies x 45,000 People = 28,035,000 People

Launch Arcology: 623 Arcologies x 65,000 People = 40,495,000 People

Total Population:

165,000 People from the Arcology grid with a fusion plant + 34,265,000 People from the Plymouth Arcologies + 18,690,000 People from the Forest Arcologies + 28,035,000 People from the Darco Arcologies + 40,495,000 People Launch Arcologies = 121,650,000 People

Calculating the total cost of building the Arcology City:

Plymouth Arcology: 624 Arcologies x $100,000 = $62,400,000

Forest Arcology: 623 Arcologies x $120,000 = $74,760,000

Darco Arcology: 624 Arcologies x $150,000 = $93,600,000

Launch Arcology: 624 Arcologies x $200,000 = $124,800,000

Fusion Power Plants: 5 Plants x $40,000 = $200,000

Total Cost of the Arcology City: $480,560,000

Images showing how the city is structured:

1.) The four types of Arcology side by side:

2.) An image showing how the Arcology grid containing all four types of Arcology are arranged:

3.) An image showing how the fusion power plants are arranged, with the fifth plant occupying the space for the forest Arcology in one of the grids:

So strange that this would be posted. The last few days I've had this great desire to play SimCity 2000. I have no idea why. I even downloaded the abandonware and DOSbox. Sadly, I wasn't able to get my mouse to respond properly, and couldn't play :(

BTW SimCity 5 looks like it's going to be a DLC fest. The underlying model it uses looks neat, but...

I laughed at how some people from the team recently did an AMA and a sizable chunk of the thread, as far as I read at least, was people telling them that their always online DRM sucked and they would just download it if they didn't change that "feature".